Brown $68K vs. UMich (in-state) $28K

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:to OP: Be sure to add in the calculations of costs associated with travel back and forth. That killed applying to west coast schools for us. We just couldn't afford to pay for multiple air tickets repeatedly over four or five years. We, too, went state and DD is thrilled.

My DC goes to Michigan and airfare to Detroit from DC is quite inexpensive (although the OP must know that if she's doing it every week). Haven't priced to providence, but have done Boston to Detroit and it's also cheap.

[Anonymous]

Nobody cares where you get your undergraduate degree. I'd tell her that I'd pay for a year of travel once she's done if she chooses the cheaper school. Hell, she'd learn more in that year than 4 years at either institution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Girls tend to find spouses at college or through college friends. Who's your daughter going to meet at Michigan? Half the kids are middle class Michigan residents; the other half are kids that were rejected from Berkeley (California students), Brown, Penn and Cornell. 1/2 the boys are engineering or business (at Ross, a marketing school). Statistically, if your daughter meets her husband at Michigan, he's most likely going to be a future Ford engineer or mid-level manager at Kraft/Heinz.

At Brown a likely mate possessed the candle power (and/or $) to get into an Ivy, will be conditioned, respect culture, cosmopolitan, and post-grad will likely end up in finance, or a top tier law/medical school.

Different leagues.

What an ageist/sexist remark! I certainly didn't look for a husband at my SLAC nor at yale law school I was there to learn what I needed to do and excel. My message to both of my kids is that time spent dating in high school, college, is wasted time Focus on your studies and all will fall into place. Are you from the south? Seriously, no one thinks about MRS degrees anymore. And, finally, i wouldn't want my kid to marry anyone from Brown because I know that they got an ultra liberal chopped-up version of an education as opposed to the Great Books series at chicago or Columbia. Taking a bunch of isolated courses of your own pick does not an intellectual make.

I'm not talking about a marry at 22 stay-at-home southern belle MRS degree. But many spouses meet in college or something like reconnecting in your mid 20s with someone you first met welcome week. It happens frequently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nobody cares where you get your undergraduate degree. I'd tell her that I'd pay for a year of travel once she's done if she chooses the cheaper school. Hell, she'd learn more in that year than 4 years at either institution.

True but grad schools and Med schools do take it into account. And honestly, DD is scoffing at high school 2.0 now, but when she goes to college and feels like fish out water like all of us sometimes did, she has the option of reconnecting with her high school friends and shifting down into that easy state college, job in home town, hanging out with high school buddies until well past middle age mentality. Maybe OP is fine with that, but if she has potential and dreams to big things, it would be sad if she ends up at middle age and regrets taking the safe choice but has two kids and a job at GM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:...regrets taking the safe choice but has two kids and a job at GM.

To be clear, I have some highly successful friends and family who work at the Big 3 automakers. Engineers that get into management can be in the $200,000-400,000 comp range. Comfortable life, obviously!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nobody cares where you get your undergraduate degree. I'd tell her that I'd pay for a year of travel once she's done if she chooses the cheaper school. Hell, she'd learn more in that year than 4 years at either institution.

I'm always curious about these remarks? What lessons do you gain from travel that are actually career related? My accounting skills weren't used that much, I doubt my friends law degree was really enhanced by a year backpacking around Europe? I think you could argue that in scrappy enough circumstances in sketchy countries they learn to hussle and be independent... Or end up on some dicey situations. And most 20 years spend a lot of time drinking, just like in college!

I learned a lot in college, but maybe PP went to some fancy prep school if her parents had money to bankroll a year of traveling? I could see, especially in non technical / non science fields college may be fairly lateral academic move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:...regrets taking the safe choice but has two kids and a job at GM.

To be clear, I have some highly successful friends and family who work at the Big 3 automakers. Engineers that get into management can be in the $200,000-400,000 comp range. Comfortable life, obviously!

I am envious in some ways of my friends who stayed in my slow hometown region, went to state, and they have much nicer lifestyles than I can afford here in DC (partly b/c I didn't know how to really chase the money and a salary of $100k seemed like an ungodly amount of money). I would have been much happier to not have that lesson in COL economics, but I do know I would have been ultimately dissatisfied staying in that one place and at least trying to do more. Depends on what OP DD dreams are, and her temperament.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nobody cares where you get your undergraduate degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody cares where you get your undergraduate degree. I'd tell her that I'd pay for a year of travel once she's done if she chooses the cheaper school. Hell, she'd learn more in that year than 4 years at either institution.

True but grad schools and Med schools do take it into account. And honestly, DD is scoffing at high school 2.0 now, but when she goes to college and feels like fish out water like all of us sometimes did, she has the option of reconnecting with her high school friends and shifting down into that easy state college, job in home town, hanging out with high school buddies until well past middle age mentality. Maybe OP is fine with that, but if she has potential and dreams to big things, it would be sad if she ends up at middle age and regrets taking the safe choice but has two kids and a job at GM.

This is absurd, and eerily reminiscent of my own mistaken assumptions about Michigan vs. Brown when I was in high school. I chose Michigan (with heavy pressure from my parents), and went to the most highly ranked ivy graduate program in my field afterwards. Having attended Michigan did not hold me back. I did the undergraduate honors program recommended above, lived on campus all four years, and had a mix of new friends plus one high school friend. Michigan has a LARGE alumni community here and throughout the country; for every alum who's 'middle aged with two kids and a job at GM', I've met two who are doing more interesting things and continuing to pursue their dreams. Michigan is not an 'easy state college,' and its specialty programs are particularly rigorous.

OP hook your DD up with some Michigan alums (that was part of my parents' persuasive attack) and send her to Michigan.

[Anonymous]

To the OP, I would strongly urge you not to rely on this thread. You have asked a number of questions which suggest you do not have a good grasp on the process and you need to learn more about that. The vast majority of people on this site are 20 years out of date as they are talking about the one kid they knew from their high school who went to Brown or Michigan. Times change and there are a lot better sources. Both are great schools but Michigan is four times as large (at least) and nearby. If you can afford both, might let your daughter choose where she feels best. As someone else noted, Brown is a bit unusual in that it has no requirements so one might consider it better for a self-directed kid but for the love of god, don't make a decision because someone's sister or neighbor did or did not like a particular school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Girls tend to find spouses at college or through college friends. Who's your daughter going to meet at Michigan? Half the kids are middle class Michigan residents; the other half are kids that were rejected from Berkeley (California students), Brown, Penn and Cornell. 1/2 the boys are engineering or business (at Ross, a marketing school). Statistically, if your daughter meets her husband at Michigan, he's most likely going to be a future Ford engineer or mid-level manager at Kraft/Heinz.

At Brown a likely mate possessed the candle power (and/or $) to get into an Ivy, will be conditioned, respect culture, cosmopolitan, and post-grad will likely end up in finance, or a top tier law/medical school.

Different leagues.

Mrs. Bennett is on the Internet!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Girls tend to find spouses at college or through college friends. Who's your daughter going to meet at Michigan? Half the kids are middle class Michigan residents; the other half are kids that were rejected from Berkeley (California students), Brown, Penn and Cornell. 1/2 the boys are engineering or business (at Ross, a marketing school). Statistically, if your daughter meets her husband at Michigan, he's most likely going to be a future Ford engineer or mid-level manager at Kraft/Heinz.

At Brown a likely mate possessed the candle power (and/or $) to get into an Ivy, will be conditioned, respect culture, cosmopolitan, and post-grad will likely end up in finance, or a top tier law/medical school.

Different leagues.

What an ageist/sexist remark! I certainly didn't look for a husband at my SLAC nor at yale law school I was there to learn what I needed to do and excel. My message to both of my kids is that time spent dating in high school, college, is wasted time Focus on your studies and all will fall into place. Are you from the south? Seriously, no one thinks about MRS degrees anymore. And, finally, i wouldn't want my kid to marry anyone from Brown because I know that they got an ultra liberal chopped-up version of an education as opposed to the Great Books series at chicago or Columbia. Taking a bunch of isolated courses of your own pick does not an intellectual make.

I'm not talking about a marry at 22 stay-at-home southern belle MRS degree. But many spouses meet in college or something like reconnecting in your mid 20s with someone you first met welcome week. It happens frequently.

No it doesn't! At least not on the professional level. Maybe if you go no further than a bachelors degree but even at my SLAC no women were running around for MRS. degrees. And why are you assuming that OP's daughter should go to Brown because the MALE there would be a better provider? Why not her own DAUGHTER being the better provider? Your view of college life for women is really skewed. Did you go to college just to get a husband? Why can't OP's daughter go to Michigan, use Michigans great name and contacts and go on to an Ivy for professional school as I did? I made 3 x what my husband made when I married him And his pedigree had more prep schools and Ivy elites on it than mine. It's all what you do with yourself, with your major, your selection of major, and your placemen tin your class so you can place in a good ivy for graduate work. You couldn't pay me to send my kids to Brown where they will take a hodge-podge of courses like "THe use of phallus imagery in contemporary movies". If you want money, go for engineering, technology, Computer Science at an xlnt state school and save the money for graduate work at an Ivy. No one cares where you did undergrad. It's the grad. work that counts - unless you are married and stuck with two kids. Seriously this is one of the weirdest posts I've ever seen on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

No one should presume they'll get into Brown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I'm familiar with the curriculum, but I don't know what you mean by a student needing structure. Open is just flexibility and gives the student freedom to explore. It's not like they're on their own without an advisor, right? I'd think most college students would find that really ne

I graduated from Brown over 20 years ago, so my experience may be outdated.

But yes, students are on their own. THey are assigned a freshman advisor, but that's it. I think we had to take a freshman seminar with them. But there was very much the culture of, if you need help, go seek it out. If you are a self starter, ambitious, extrovert, you can do OK.

There is NO curriculum, except what your concentration requires. There are no distribution requirements. And in most cases, prerequisites are flexible... if you think you can handle a class without the prerequisite, go ahead.

[Anonymous]

Half the couples I know met in college. Read the regular NYT wedding announcements; at least half attended the same undergrad or law/MD school. Doesn't mean the women were prowling for husband...it just happens. It also doesn't mean the women are hunting for a provider...it just means you're surrounded by intellecial and ambitious peers, so it's easier to find a match.